Can a rational agent accept Christianity? There are some who would answer “No” to this question while others would say “Yes.” But before this question can be answer we must answer the more fundamental questions, “What is rationality and what does it mean to be rational?” This is a troublesome epistemic question because rationality concerns the issue of having justified beliefs, having true beliefs, knowledge, and determining whether one’s knowledge and attitudes are rational or irrational is a type of (but not purely a) logical question. But rationality and irrationality are linked for to say that an action is irrational one must appeal to or be appealing to a standard of rationality for irrationality instantiates a violation of that (or some sort of) rational standard, which is something I will elaborate in the following chapter. One cannot define one without the other.
[…]
The question of whether or not a Christian is rational in holding their Christian belief is, according to Alvin Plantinga, a de jure question. […] Within the realm of ethics there is a consider debate concerning how individuals are held ethically responsible for their actions and in the spirit of that tradition some theories of rationality has began using ethical terminology and analyses in order establish new accounts of what it means to be a rational individual. Some argue that rationality is connected to what they call “believing responsibly”, and the idea is that an individual have beliefs that are true, justified, have logical basis, etc. In contrast, it may be said of someone that they believe irresponsibly if their beliefs are false, unjustified, illogical, etc.
I have noticed an extremely interesting sentiment held by those within philosophy (and perhaps maybe even science) who are atheists, agnostics, and perhaps just in general anti-theists, and this sentiment is that those who believe in Christianity are in some sense are believing irresponsibly and that they are not acting in accordance with what rational thought would have us believe. Let us consider a case of a Christian named John; John begins studying the atheistic arguments found within philosophy and science, carefully considers them, even has moments of doubt concerning his Christian beliefs, but in the end, his Christian beliefs remain intact. Now there are some within philosophy who would argue that John is irrational and that he believes in Christianity irresponsibly, but is this really the case? The interesting thing is that philosophers hold the type of inquiry that John underwent as sacrosanct. For example, I consider myself to be a student and believer in the philosophies of Donald Davidson and even to some extent W.V. Quine but I do know that there is an increasing majority who no longer accept Davidsonian philosophy and an ever greater number who do not accept Quinean philosophy. Many philosophers who do not accept Davidsonian and Quinean philosophy have studied their theories, considered their implications, but in the end, remained unmoved by their arguments. Philosophers in this case would say that those who have studied Davidsonian and Quinean philosophy but remain unmoved are in fact acting rationally; they considered the arguments, considered their implications, but in the end they do not believe Davidsonian and/or Quinean philosophy to be correct. Consider a case of a philosopher named Susan; Susan has studied Davidson’s truth-theoretical semantics, carefully considers its implications, but in the end remains unmoved by the theory. We would not say (at least I would not say) that those who do not accept Davidsonian and/or Quinean philosophy are somehow acting irrationally nor believing irresponsibly. In the case of Susan, even though I accept Davidsonian philosophy, I may say that she is wrong in not accepting Davidson’s truth-theoretical semantics, but I would not say that she believing her opposing view irresponsibly nor irrationally since she had studied Davidson’s theory and was unmoved. Susan acted in such a way that I would deem to be rational and epistemically responsible. This is not isolated just to Davidsonian/Quinean philosophy but really for a majority of philosophical theories; for every philosophical theory one may hold there will be a majority who disagree with that theory, such in the way of the philosophical realm.
So, if being unmoved after carefully considering a philosophical theory is considered to be true rational inquiry and holding on to ones original beliefs after such an inquiry is epistemically acceptable/responsible, why do some philosophers think that theists, specifically Christians, who are unmoved by atheistic arguments are irrational and believe irresponsibly? I have heard it said, “Atheistic arguments just show without a doubt that Christianity is false.” I believe that if one studies Davidson’s philosophy carefully, skepticism of the external world, knowledge, meaning, and truth are without doubt clearly shown to be false, but that does not stop some philosophers from being skeptics despite the obvious truth I believe Davidsonian philosophy possesses. Therefore, despite the obviousness that I believe Davidsonian philosophy shows skepticism to be false, that does not stop some philosophers from being skeptics about the external world, knowledge, meaning, truth, and the like. ‘Obviousness’ is not a necessary condition for the acceptance of a given philosophical theory; at most it is a sufficient condition, if even that. So clearly there must be more to this philosophical double-standard than just the so-called obviousness of atheistic arguments.
No comments:
Post a Comment